Clinic Service Virtualization

Clinic service virtualization is closely connected with usage of cloud approach when the required computing infrastructure or services are located outside the customer's IT infrastructure and ensure remote user request processing and implementation of various tasks complying with all necessary safety and performance requirements. On the one hand, this approach allows supporting simultaneous work of several doctors located in different clinics and, on the other hand, allows significant medical institution cost saving connected with development and introduction of additional infrastructure and applications within in-house MIS.

The services to be virtualized can be divided into two classes.

The first class - AWSs - workstations of diagnosticians, clinicians and non-medical personnel, department heads and administration.

Almost all workstations in clinics and hospitals can be virtualized. To implement the approach the medical institution information infrastructure shall support application of virtual services. To ensure this it shall be up-to-date, consist of state-of-the-art hardware and technologies. Medical decision making support system used during surgeries can be taken as an example of expensive clinic service virtualization. Application of the system requires availability of state-of-the-art medical equipment in operating rooms able to send all patient-connected telemetry via IP network. The system located in the cloud computing center processes the telemetry and ensures doctor's decision support which is especially relevant in difficult cases when the decision shall be made in seconds. The system monitoring cycle can take from several seconds to several minutes depending on surgeon's perception physiological maker. Application of the systems is especially recommended for regional clinics where the doctor's qualification is not as high as in the leading country institutions. This approach is more advanced than telemedicine as far as it eliminates influence of human factor. The system will offer decision options, and the doctor can choose the appropriate one basing on experience and medical science. Application of such systems will allow elimination or significant reduction of medical errors made by doctors due to the fact that his attention is insufficient to correctly interpret readings of medical devices or because he/she is not acquainted with the latest recommendation of international organizations on treatment of this or that disease.

The second class - virtualization of the main MPI information system - MIS. Applied generally in small MPIs of standard specializations without certain medical profile where introduction of in-house MIS is unreasonable. At this, doctors' and non-medical personnel AWSs and centralized services, such as APH (automated patient history), accounting, HR can be virtualized.

Open Technologies offers the following approach to application of virtualization technologies on MPIs:

  1. Audit of treatment and diagnostics process, business activities and infrastructure supporting them to ensure correspondence with virtual service organization principles.
  2. Collection and approval of requirements by the MPI administration to organize the main clinic processes using IT.
  3. Preparation and submission of recommendations on reorganization of treatment and diagnostics process, business activities and on updating of the MPI IT infrastructure to allow virtualization.
  4. Implementation of works required.